


Bake and Sew

by PresquePommes



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Prank Wars, Sassy Grandma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 13:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PresquePommes/pseuds/PresquePommes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bro doesn't much appreciate this Egbert kid's attitude.</p><p>He figures it's only right to make that known.</p><p>Nanna doesn't much appreciate his attitude towards her grandson.</p><p>She feels it's only proper to return the favour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bake and Sew

**Author's Note:**

> I should be doing homework, but instead I finally finished that one BroNanna chapter that was lingering on my computer.
> 
> Okay, now I need to do my damn homework.

Your name isn’t really Bro, legally.

But it might as well be, because you are living proof that the vast majority of people can be convinced that literally anything is cool as long as the person saying, doing, or wearing that thing is attractive enough.

Your name isn’t really Bro, technically.

But you call the shots, so it is.

You call the shots and they call you Bro, because you damn well know that you’re attractive enough.

If it wasn’t for your little dude, the mini Bro Strider to your big Bro Strider, you’d probably still be playing the three o’clock underbelly of this town like the master of some seedy marionette with lipstick smeared across one wooden cheek and mascara running into the _Riviera Blue_ of its painted eyes.

But you do have Dave, and Dave’s too young to withstand the after-midnight pulse of a people who’d rather feel the bass pounding hard in the marrow of their bones and against the paper-thin walls of their eardrums than risk the possibility of hearing another person speak.

They call you Bro because you call the shots, but he’ll call you Bro because you know damn well you’ll never be worth calling a father.

You figure you can probably manage being his brother. You’ve been Bro to a lot of people from a lot of places for a very long time, after all.

And when he isn’t so soft and helpless, you figure you’ll start again, take him with you, the prodigal king returned and the grand duke debuting.

But for now, your throne holds audience with much quieter subjects, and you mix throbbing beats into one ear and listen for tell-tale breaks or hitches in a rhythm of gurgles and croons with the other. Your ward sits between your knees, not beside you, because he is old enough to crawl, but too young to know the dangers posed by the allure of a gleaming edge.

You’ll never be a father, but that doesn’t make you stupid.

==>

Your name isn’t really Bro, but nobody remembers what the hell your real name was supposed to be, so that’s all they call you.

You’re fine with that.

There aren’t many people around to call you much, these days.

You still think about the clubs, sometimes. About the shitty bartender over on Richmond Avenue. If they ever got around to replacing him. About gigs on Main Street and that one chick that was always there, no matter what day of the week. If she was an alcoholic or just stalking you.

About the heat. About the smell.

About looking down on a crowded dance floor. About knowing the power you held over them. About feeling invincible.

Mostly, though, you just think about what an idiot you were, so sure you’d have a kingdom to come back to.

In the end, you were elected by the people you ruled over, and when you stepped down, they elected to replace you.

You’ve learned your lesson.

The world is impatient, and kids take a long time to grow up.

So now you rule over a different dominion, a general rather than a king.

You still shape and temper the pleasing softness of the same subjects that have always remained constant to you, and in turn, they coax open the wallets and safes of an invisible multitude- one defined not by what drink it’s holding and what it wants to listen to, but by where it lives and how much it’s willing to pay.

They used to buy you shots, invite you up to penthouse suites to watch them snorting lines.

Now they buy you new turntables, and no high you’ve ever felt could paint such a fucking artistry on your soul as Dave’s reaction did.

You know you should feel that way now, standing beside him in a crowded airport, watching his face light up as a young boy in a blue sweater and thick glasses struggles into view, but you don’t.

You want him to be happy, but you never quite grew up, you’re not a mature adult, and you don’t want to share.

So when you see the way he can’t contain his fidgeting under the toothy blaze of that orthodontic disaster, you just feel competitive, not elated.

But you’re still the adult here.

There’s no need to be stupid.

The Egbert kid better not turn out to be a sassy little dipshit, though, or you’ll make damn sure he remembers you.

==>

Your name is Jane Egbert, but it wasn’t always.

You prefer Nanna, anyway. Strange as it may sound, you’ve found that being a grandmother suits you better than being a mother ever did.

You love your son dearly, but he’s always taken strongly after your late husband.

Your son was a good, upright sort of boy who grew up into a good, upright sort of man, just like his father, but you’re sad to say he’s never quite understood your sense of humour.

But John, your lovely grandson, is a Crocker from the marrow of his bones to the bottom of the pie dish, no matter where he came from.

He’s a good sort of boy, too, but he’s got that shine of mischief you’ve seen all too often in your own eyes.

And you’ll admit you’re guilty of encouraging it.

You yourself were once the apple of your father’s eye and the absolute bane of your stepmother’s existence.

You were an adept sleuth, a proper gumshoe with a penchant for prankery, and she suffered almost as much at your hands as you did at hers after your father died.

And did she ever get to have her one last caper, wouldn’t you know it- even after she went missing, she never quite disappeared.

Even with her gone, you were still “ _Betty Crocker’s little girl, right?”_ and that’s just how she would’ve wanted it.

Self-absorbed old hag.

==>

John calls you Nanna, and it is, by far, your favourite moniker.

He calls you Nanna on the phone, to his friends in conversation, to his father at dinner, and coming through the front door on the way back from his first time visiting his lovely playmate in the South.

And _good gravy_ , does he ever look exhausted!

Mayhap a little bit more than exhausted, you suspect. Your sleuthing instincts sharpen inquisitively.

Your son has noticed nothing out of the ordinary; after all, there’s nothing strange about a young boy looking tuckered after spending his whole lonely day crowded in aeroports and aeroplanes.

Still, your eyes- still sharp when it matters, even at your age, and even through a hefty set of bifocals- spy a certain raggedness that seems to you to speak of more than a single hard day’s travel, and the limp heaviness of his hug sets your investigative mind in motion.

Your grandson seems both grateful for and reluctant to accept your offer to help him unpack, but you’ve known him for long enough to know he’ll never turn down a fresh load of laundry from you.

All it takes is a “None of this starchy, stiff-collared business your father always gets up to, _hm-mm_ , my boy? _Hoo hoo hoo!_ ” and you’re watching the tension ease from his shoulders as he chuckles along with you, playing his high, breathy giggle against your dry, whooping laugh. You’ve missed him. Your home is much too quiet when he’s gone.

Something about the quiet hiss of his bag’s zipper silences him, though, and you peer in before he can close it back up again.

 _Well_ , now.   _Hmm_.

“Now, now, isn’t that interesting? I hope you’ve brought back souvenirs for all of us, John!” you tease him, and his look of absolute mortification tells you just about everything you need to know about those dark circles under his eyes and that unusually scruffy hair.

He just looks at you, mouth turned down and hands criss-crossing futilely over the lump of bright fabric resting casually atop his clothing. It looks quite damp in there. You suspect it’s not from any wetness in the cargo hold of the plane- in fact, your keen nose detects a hint of chemical cherry, much too sweet to be natural, and there’s an ominously purple dark patch sullying the blue sleeve of one of his shirts.

You’d feel inclined to say he’s in a sort of quiet shock, but frankly, he simply appears far too humiliated to speak. You can almost see his Prankster’s Gambit going into the- _pardon your penchant for punditry, hoo hoo!_ \- going into the red.

You wag your fingers under his nose playfully. “Don’t look so hornswoggled, my boy. Now then, we’d better get this mess cleaned up before your father sees, hmm?”  He nods imperceptibly. You daresay he’s almost as rosy as the strange damp thing under his fingers.

He buries his face in his hands as you take it from him. Looking at it more closely, you can’t say you find his reaction shocking. You wouldn’t want your grandmother seeing such a creation, either, if you’d ever had one!

You’re smiling at your poor bamboozled grandson even as you leave the room, holding the thing between two fingers by its questionable nose. “We’ll have to return you home,” you tell it sternly, “I imagine someone will be missing you.”

You can feel that old familiar itch settling into your old bones like an ache before a rainstorm.

You may be too old to drive these days- too old even to work, they say, no matter how spry your mischief is- but you’ll never be too old to show another saucy whippersnapper how it’s done.

“It seems to me,” you tell your new friend conspiratorially, “that some cheeky jackanape has had a lark with my dear John.”

It seems to you that if some cheeky jackanape doesn’t know better than to have his mean-spirited fun with Jane Egbert’s kin, then he’ll simply have to learn.

“And, I daresay he’ll find _this_ Nanna,” you murmur and wink as you set the empty-eyed creature on the counter, “a teacher with much better _taste!”_

 _“Hoo hoo hoo!_ ”

==>

Your name isn’t really Bro, legally, but that’s still the name that usually shows up on your packages.

You’re eying this one a little cautiously, but only a little.

After all, the only people who have your home address are people you want to have to have your home address.

There’s no return address on this box, though- just a red _fragile_ stamp in a red circle, your legal name and your home address.

You shrug and cut into the tape anyway.  Hey, maybe it’s supplies.

It’s not supplies.

It’s a red velvet smuppet with bright glassy eyes, tucked carefully amidst crisp foam packing peanuts and just as soft and clean as the day you broke the thread off of that final closing stitch.

You sent the kid home with a cartoonishly lewd sex puppet with a super-sized bottle of edible lubricant stuffed inside of it- you sure hope it didn’t break during transport, the cap looked pretty dodgy and that’d sure be an awful shame- and his family washed it and paid first-class postage to get it home to you safely.

 _What a bunch of fuckin’ winners_.

You snort and reach for it.

You stop laughing when your fingers start to sink in and don’t stop.

One of the foam peanuts is sticking to your forearm. It’s _heavy_ , somehow. You swat at it with your other hand, and it comes apart wet like no foam peanut ever did, half of it sticking to fingers of your other hand.

Something smells acrid, faintly burnt in a very chemical way.

You pull your hand out of the box and find it covered in pastry.

It’s a cake. A fucking _cake_. A lush, moist, endlessly sticky cake, cherry red and sickly sweet. It’d probably smell good if it wasn’t for the burnt smell of the superglue.

And it _is_ superglue.

You figured that out even before you realized that you can’t separate your fingers. Your gloves are ruined, too.

Just fucking great.

You look at the white and red mess in the box, one bright eye still staring mockingly up at you. You’re almost too impressed to be pissed. You didn’t even know cake could look like that.

There’s something written along the seam of the cardboard, just behind where you took a crippling swipe out of the superglue smuppet’s back.

It’s bright blue, and the words are small and neat. You have to squint to make it out. You don’t want to get too close. You don’t know what kind of fumes this thing is letting off.

It seems to me you need a little help keeping your hands out of mischief, dear!

Yours,  
Jane Egbert

P.S.: I wouldn’t eat the cake if I were you! Hoo hoo hoo!

Seems to you somebody doesn’t know who she’s messing with.


End file.
